Wintering in the Riviera: With Notes of Travel in Italy and France, and Practical Hints to Travellers
John Stuart Mill · en
The San Remo _Liste Générale des Étrangers_, besides other
intelligence, gives the names of the ‘Medicins,’—viz., six German,
three English, one French, one Russian, and thirteen Italian doctors.
There are both German and English Protestant churches. The English
church is a commodious building: the incumbent is the Rev. Mr. Fenton.
The United Presbyterians of Scotland—I think the only station possessed
by that body abroad—had worship in two rooms of the Villa Marguerita,
where once a day on Sundays, the Rev. James Robertson of Edinburgh
(just deceased) was, during our first visit, addressing, in a homely
manner, crowded audiences; while in the evening he had service in
a room of the Hotel des Londres, in which he was then residing,
the English visitors of the hotel turning in to listen to one much
respected by them all,—all sympathizing, too, in the sad cause which
brought him to a place where he was destined, like so many others, to
leave a loved one behind.
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The great industry of San Remo necessarily consists in the cultivation
of the olive tree; but one minor occupation is derived from the olive
groves in the fabrication of articles of olive wood. That of San Remo
is of a lighter colour and richer grain, and takes a higher polish than
the olive wood of Sorrento. In the matter of inlaying, however, it
does not appear to me that San Remo comes up to the better quality of
Sorrento work, while the articles made are sold at a much higher price.
The shopkeepers, I was told, consider the foreigners, and I suppose
especially the English, as legitimate prey, and charge them more than
the natives; nor do they ask high prices, as they do in other Italian
places, with the intention of after abatement, but they stick to the
price demanded, and are very stiff to move.
On one of the hill–slopes about a mile and a half out of town, we found
a chocolate manufactory, the material for which comes all the way from
Bordeaux.
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